Assessing Grammatical and Textual Features in L2 Writing Samples: The Case of French as a Foreign Language

Abstract

This article investigates the relative importance of various grammatical and discourse features in the evaluation of second language (L2) writing samples produced by college students enrolled in beginning and intermediate French courses. Three native‐speaking instructors of French rated 172 essays using a scale that was constructed by the researcher and based on theory and research from discourse analysis. The scale contained 4 areas of evaluation‐‐morphology, syntax, cohesion, and coherence–encompassing a total of 35 language/textual features, in addition to a holistic judgment of overall quality. Among the findings are that (a) raters relied heavily on discourse features, especially those for cohesion, in judging the overall quality of an essay; and (b) the rating scale exhibits content validity and reliability, although refinement is still needed to achieve a desired construct validity. Future research should focus on discovering other elements involved in the rating practice through analytical delineations and validation procedures and on adapting the proposed rating instrument for large‐scale assessment contexts.

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